Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Breaking out for breakfast at Oak Street Café

After subsisting off oatmeal and frozen blueberries for breakfast over the past several weeks, I just couldn't take it anymore. It's not that I am slamming those particular food items really, it's just that breakfast is truly my favorite meal of the day, especially when it means dishes like French toast sprinkled with powdered sugar, sunny-side eggs with a hefty serving of bacon or flaky biscuits loaded with creamy butter and lots of honey. If I'm really indulging, it wouldn't be tough for me to polish off all of the above at once! Anyhow, it was time for a change, so I convinced John to get out of the apartment and go around the block for a real breakfast at the Oak Street Café.

This was far from our first venture to the corner cafe seeing as it's one of the few places in our neighborhood that serves donuts, not to mention egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches on huge, chewy bagels. We arrived around noon to find the restaurant fairly empty, placed our order at the counter and sat at one of the checkered cloth-covered tables to wait. While sipping a hot cup of Community Coffee, we listened to a young woman belt out classic R&B tunes like "Route 66" accompanied by one man playing a stand-up bass and another, an upright piano. Tons of framed photos, sketches and paintings adorned the walls, almost from ceiling to floor, several of which I recognized as the work of another Oak Street resident, Frenchy.

We were both pretty hungry when our plates arrived and I am surprised how well we held ourselves back in order to take pictures. John ordered the a boudin breakfast that came with one large, split link of boudin (naturally), as well as a side of "smothered" potatoes and a pile of wheat toast. After asking the owner I discovered the boudin came from Billy's in Opelousas, Louisiana, about 25 miles outside of Lafayette, and is said to be some of the best around. I took a few bites and found it spicy and delicious, with a strong aftertaste of anise.

I opted for the Eggs Beauregard, a Southern twist on Eggs Benedict that featured two fluffy biscuits topped with sausage patties and over-easy eggs all smothered in a creamy, white sausage gravy. Like John, I also got the potatoes, which were roughly chopped reds that must have been boiled and then sauteed with plenty of spicy-hot cayenne. Some of the potatoes were eaten, but I kept shoveling in the eggs and by the time I finished them, I simply couldn't eat another bite.

All in all, I find the food at Oak Street Café to be a little pricey (our tab came to $30!), but it certainly won't stop me from rounding the corner for breakfast (or donuts) from time to time...